Amateur rocket engineers are crowdfunding a mission to penetrate the Moon

They want $1,000,000

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A small team of space enthusiasts is crowdfunding an attempt to crash a spike-shaped spacecraft into the surface of the Moon - a spacecraft that they're calling 'Moonspike'.

The project is the brainchild of Chris Lamour, a telecoms entrepreneur, and Kristian von Bengtson, the co-founder of Danish rocketry group Copenhagen Suborbitals. They've teamed up to design a rocket that they believe can get a small payload of data to the surface of our nearest neighbour in the solar system.

The rocket will have three stages and weigh about 22 tonnes, with the titular spike sat on the very top. It's been designed by people who worked with von Bengtson at Copenhagen Suborbitals, and all their calculations have been published in a 'feasibility report' published on the project's website.

A million dollars

Rather than any lofty scientific objectives, the goal is merely to see if it's possible. To find out, Lamour and von Bengtson are seeking a million dollars in crowdfunding. That'll only take them the first step of the way, though - hiring a team and building a factory. If you'd like to help out, you can throw some money at them over on Kickstarter.

"Some will say: 'But we already went to the Moon'," the pair write. "Somebody did, but it wasn't you or us, and it wasn't recently. Major governments did – and left. Space access has become stagnant. We believe that pushing the limits in any field of science and engineering generate more ideas, better opportunities and technology for the future."